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Stereotypes and word choices often go hand in hand.
For example, a recent study of massive text datasets found that in the early
1900s, Asians in the US were characterized with words like barbaric or
monstrous, but today words like passive, insensitive are more common.
We see this play out in the workplace as well.
Job ads for professional roles are often peppered with stereotypically
masculine words as are performance reviews and letters of recommendation.
These patterns have consequences.
We know that when people are described in ways that reflect stereotypes,
stereotypes are not only reinforced, but they can also create disadvantages.
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As an educator in a business school, I wanted to know if the case studies we use
in our classes also reflect stereotypes.
So a team of undergraduate research assistants and I read the 250 unique case
studies taught in the GSB MBA core curriculum.
The goal was to analyze the text of each case study,
by scrutinizing the descriptions of the protagonists, their situations and
their cultural context, to look for any potentially stereotypical language or
language patterns.
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We discovered a number of ways in which stereotype crept into the language that
used in this case studies.
First, some case studies make sweeping statements about the entire countries.
For example, one case study includes comments about the alleged
rigid hierarchy of Japan based on class, age and education.
Another case references how physically attractive Brazilians are.
Here rather than making sweeping statements, examples and
data could instead be provided to support the point being made in the case study.
Similarly, some case studies fail to provide sufficient context
around statements and wind up just reinforcing this stereotypes.
For example in a case study on an erectile dysfunction drug,
there's a discussion about how ED leads to a reduction in feeling masculine.
And there's a reference to a report in the case study,
that says that over 90% of men and women reported that confidence in
a man's sexual ability is critical to having a good loving relationship.
Here the case study could have provided a little bit more context, for example by
acknowledging that the study that they had cited included only heterosexual couples.
And while the comments about a reduction and feeling masculine maybe directly
from the study that they cited, this type of statement can reinforce the stereotype
than a man sexual ability is and should be important to his sense of masculinity.
Third, case study language can promote and reinforce gender, racial and
ethnic stereotypes.
For example, a case on a woman CEO opens up with her reading to her three year old
son and kissing him goodnight before joining her husband in the living room.
Or another case quotes a CEO as saying that the best lunches
in Japan are prepared by wives at home.
Most of these examples reinforce the stereotype that women should be wives and
mothers, but not leaders.
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First, we should train case writers, about how easy it is for
stereotypes to creep into case studies.
So that they can be attune to the language of leadership and strive to make sure that
the case studies they write do not inadvertently reinforce stereotypes.
We should also insist that whenever possible,
they include relevant context and data when making sweeping claims.
Here at the Stanford GSB we're already doing this.
We're working on training all of our case writers on the best practices.
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Second, for those of us using case studies in the classroom,
we should conduct an audit of language used in all cases that we assign.
This is something we're also doing here at the GSB.
We are currently writing cover memos for
any of the cases that we found with potentially problematic language, and
we're making these memos available to faculty.
Well we obviously can't do this for all of our cases.
We believe that faculty, once they're made aware of these issues,
will begin to audit all of the cases that they use.
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Third, as educators we can create a simple rubric to help students see how they
might identify stereotypes in case studies.
We can teach them to see if any of the patterns we identified can be found
in any particular case they're reading.
For example, we can ask them to underline country description,
and descriptions of protagonists.
And then evaluate these for any sort of bias.
Finally as educators it's important for us to make this a teaching moment.
Once we have raised issues of bias in the case studies,
we can facilitate a discussion of how language impacts other
managerial situations, that all of our students will experience in their futures.
For example, bias can creep into writing job descriptions,
letters of reference, hiring briefs or performance evaluations.
We should teach them to scrutinize the language that they use as leaders.
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